Florence Tyson, 82, Early Advocate of Creative Arts Therapy

By WOLFGANG SAXON

Published: January 31, 2001

Florence Tyson, an early practitioner of creative arts therapy who for many years led a clinic for emotionally troubled people in Manhattan, died on Jan. 18 at her home on the Upper East Side. She was 82.

Ms. Tyson founded the community-oriented Creative Arts Rehabilitation Center in Midtown, on the fringes of the theater district, in 1962 and directed it until 1990. She was then a senior consultant until 1995, when the center ran out of money and had to close.

It was one of the first outpatient clinics in the United States to use music, dance, drama, painting and poetry as therapy.

Born in Brooklyn, Ms. Tyson majored in art at Brooklyn College and had an early career in advertising and as a fund-raiser. She began to practice music therapy in the 1950's when it was new and music in a mental hospital was looked upon as largely recreational.

But based on her experience in mental hospitals, she insisted that the arts could also be effective tools in the treatment of many conditions, including schizophrenia and chronic depression.

She founded and directed a fund that raised money to send unemployed musicians to work with hospital patients.

As the trend of emptying the state's large mental institutions grew, she started her center in a basement and later moved it above a restaurant at 51st Street and Eighth Avenue. Her idea was to keep patients from relapse and readmission.

She elaborated on her approach in a book, ''Psychiatric Music Therapy: Origins and Development.'' First published in 1982, it remains in print as a primer for fellow professionals.

Ms. Tyson is survived by her companion, Saul Lishinsky of Manhattan; a sister, Lillian Cohen of Princeton, N.J.; and a brother, William Tyson of Philadelphia and Cascais, Portugal.

One of her center's staunchest supporters and fund-raisers was Celeste Holm, its president for 18 years. In 1995, the actress offered to sell the Oscar she won for her supporting role in the 1947 film ''Gentlemen's Agreement'' to keep the clinic open, to no avail.

But, in a way, Ms. Tyson's mission had been accomplished. To buttress her belief in it, she liked to quote Friedrich von Schiller, the poet and dramatist, about art ''bringing people to their senses.''

In fact, when the center closed, its trained therapists were able to move on to other such clinics established since she founded hers.